Not sure if y'all remember the data breach at Equifax a couple years ago, but they've tentatively reached a settlement recently. Heard today about a site that was created to give people information about if their information was impacted or not, and about potential remedies. Equifaxbreachsettlement.com is the website. Chazsbetterhalf & myself were not impacted, but I know of 7 people at work who were. Most applied for the $125 settlement offer. Just thought everyone should be aware.
I was hit. My wife wasn't though. I signed up. So free money for me, at the expense of my credit a couple years ago.
Well, if you had issues due to the breach, I'd consider very carefully before settling for $125. BTW, I think it's worth mentioning that if someone is concerned, you can put a "freeze" on your credit ratings/reports that is supposed to keep any new accounts from being opened, and it's supposed to be free. I don't know all the details on this.
You have to have proof of it, with pretty detailed evidence. I never had to pay for credit monitoring or legal fees to get more $$. I'm just making a comment on the whole credit thing. I have great credit now.
To be honest, I still think it's a crappy deal. So, an agency that profits from collecting every bit of information about us, with no 'opt-out' option, gets hacked and loses control of that information. The impacted get $125??? Wonder what valuation the CEO's of these agencies would place on their personal information. Bet it'd be more than $125.
Not sure of the exact amount, but somewhere around 145 million affected by the breach, also not exactly sure of the settlement $$, but should be much larger than $328 million. But yeah, lawyers cracked a bottle of bubbly after that.
Looks like the settlement amount was $700 million, with 147 million people affected. Now, I'm no Einstein, but I'm pretty good at math, and something isn't adding up there. Factor in the lawyer's cut... hmmm I'm betting they hope no one hears about this, otherwise there's no way it works out right.
Depending on how you were affected by the breach, you could be eligible for several types of compensation. Equifax will pay at least $380.5 million into a Consumer Restitution Fund. so 200-400 million went to lawyers and the govt and 350 million will go to the companies figuring out who gets what, the "free" credit monitoirng services and the 147 million who got screwed will get $125 each
That's what I was thinking... It's along the same lines as the class action suits for cars. Most people get barely anything, but the lawyers make bank.
I saw a blurb on the news, I looked into freezing our credit lines. Became distracted reading about freezing kiddo's, and there it sits. Hopefully I can do that tomorrow. And yes, it's redonkulous that agencies allowed to collect and track our financials and personal info are not bullet proof. Reminds me, I checked an unused credit card, I have not used it in years but have a $25 late fee as of yesterday. For guess what?!? Late payment on the annual fee, I'll make a phone call and see if they they will grant some mercy
Unfortunately not using your card is actually bad for your credit. It's better up use it once in a while, and pay it off right away.
I heard that tooHorkn , since all those years ago I've moved to a Sears Mastercard and Amazon (dont recall the kind) that I use and pay off almost monthly. I also heard it also was a demerit to our credit to close and credit card, which I'd like to do, I just paid WWW's annual membership fee on his card a couple months ago from the same company way back then. Idk, leaning towards cancelling. It's all confusing and none is convenient.
Cancel any cards that have an annual fee. No sense in paying for it, there's plenty of fee free cards available. Keeping a fee free card does have advantages, it shows additional available credit that is not being used. Use it occasionally to keep active, as long as it's paid off, it improves credit rating. You can be penalized for too much revolving credit, so keeping it to a max of three revolving accounts is recommended (including store cards). We have three cards, one that is actively used, and 2 that are static. I transfer balances to the static ones occasionally, but they have fixed interest rates, one @6.0%, and one @8.49%.
Just read something that there's only enough money set aside for cash payments to pay everyone $0.21 if everyone effected claims.
Credit freeze completed on WWW and myself on 2 of the 3 monitoring sites, I went through on Equifax but the system was overloaded and did not complete WWW's, they said try again in 24 hours. To freeze credit on a minor child (ours was not impacted) all 3 sites require her personal info, birth certificate/SS# and my info proving my identity and I am her mother--------through USPS. All those docs via the snail mail, interesting. The credit card company refunded the late fee on the annual membership. I'll be closing both cards after another matter is resolved, hopefully the end of the year. Thanks Chaz great thread and thanks for the reminder since I meant to freeze credit back then.
